I was stunned this morning when my 13 months old grabbed one of his brother/sisters Leapsters, tooddled over to his chair and climbed in and proceeded to turn it on and draw on the screen with the pen. I know he is reaching his milestones earlier than most of the other kids but with this I don't have a clue, we never had these when any of the older ones were this age. This seems odd for me at this age but I'm not sure. Anyone have this behavior, and when?

On a broader range is it possible for all five to be "above average"? We know the oldest is gifted. The psychologist believes that my oldest twin is without doing the formal testing yet. My younger twin is way ahead in Language and arts, this from a child who didn't talk and was in speech therapy for years. My sons Early Childhood teacher had some interesting questions at conferences,(he attends for speech therapy as well). Now that he is talking we are beginning to see how much he really knows at 3 and beginning to wonder. Are there any statistics out there? This is beginning to get scary from where I'm standing. Dealing with the older ones is already exhausting. Don't take that wrong but I'm sure many of you can understand what I mean.

Our younger one was drawing with crayons long before he turned 1. My guess would be around 9 months or so. His brother was drawing and he wanted to try it as well.

As for all of them being above average I think it's not unusual or even surprising. IQ depends on nature as well as nurture. Most of the HG+ kids have gifted parents. If I remember it correctly 60% (or was it 40%) of the siblings are within 10 point difference on IQ tests.

DS7 drew simple recognizable cars and trucks before he was 1yo. He really liked using a Magnadoodle--a magnet "pen" attached to a special board that he'd erase and reuse. It works a lot like a Leapster, though less high tech. It was really attractive to him, more so than crayons.

And, yes, GTness tends to run in families. It's entirely possible that all the kids are GT to some degree.

LOL, with the above comments I would conclude that the main question of is this normal would be yes but it isn't normal and it fits under fine motor skills. My DD was holding a spoon and scribbling around 6 mths and was using the magnadoodle that Kriston talks about by 8 mths. She started more with letters b/c she was interested in them and could write M, H, W, O and a few others by that time. She is 2 now and has been able to draw great creatures with volume and details. It is the one thing that I can point at and say HA! I was way ahead of you. I was able to draw people with details like ear canals and belly buttons before I could walk. (I know that is awful but give me just one thing!) So to answer your question for this board you will see a lot of similarities but a lot of the people have highly gifted children but for the normal child it is not normal. 2 year olds are still scribbling and can not hold a crayon or pencil properly. I watched a 2 1/2 last night and she had no idea how to hold the pen she was using to scribble with. And I have to say that verbally she was advanced.

Dd2.5 was enjoying my ds' leapster, attempting the pen, around 18mos-2 years, but did need help getting the pen to work on the chicken color and shape matching. We have since misplaced the darn thing...
She is ok with crayon and pencil now, but so far draws only eggs, circles, attempts faces with eyes, mouth.
Although she is clearly advanced with her vocab. and speech, I figure her drawing is probably just a little early, if at all.
She is beginning to express that such and such drawing is an alligator or whatever, but it's pretty hard to see
I might have skewed perspective on that because ds was really early with drawing.

I had read that siblings tend to be within 10 iq points of each other.
So look out. (Can't remember exactly where I read that...)

http://books.google.com/books?id=N2Uk58uFSD4C&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=siblings,+iq+within+10+points&source=web&ots=-t4-DINk49&sig=B0B5rig8k58D2r63KOnUgkBVLmY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Might be of interest!